South African communities vs Shell: high court victories show that cultural beliefs and practices count in climate cases

By Louise Du Toit, Lecturer in Law, Southampton Law School, University of Southampton
Brewsters Caiphas Soyapi, Associate Professor: Environmental Change, Faculty of Law, North-West University
Louis Kotzé, Researcher at the Research Institute for Sustainability Helmholtz Center, Potsdam and Research Professor of Law at the Faculty of Law, North-West University

When the Shell petroleum company announced in 2021 that it wanted to explore for fossil fuels off South Africa’s pristine Wild Coast, Indigenous communities in the area immediately fought back through the country’s courts.

In two separate cases, the communities…

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